In relation to issues sensitive to climate change, I want to indicate that we are committed to making sure that we meet our target as laid out in our long-term mitigation scenarios, and this is to make sure that we reduce our emissions by at least 42% by 2025. We are committed to that. We all know that the challenges we are facing today in relation to climate change are actually the sins of our great, great grandfathers being carried out on us, because if you remember, we are actually bearing the brunt of 150 years of development in the developed countries and we, as the developing countries, have to slow down our development so as to ensure that we are not as irresponsible as those developed countries whose sins we are paying for today.
South Africa has abundant coal resources and reserves and there is no way hon Matladi, that we can say to the 24% of the rural people, that don't have access to electricity that we will not provide them with electricity whilst we have coal reserves. What we are doing, as a responsible government, is to make sure that our people in the science and technology environment, as you indicated - the work that is being done through the CSIR and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology - are looking at how to make this coal clean so as to be able to continue using it. [Applause.]
You've seen recently with the accidents happening in the United States that it is still more than 51% reliant on coal. The fact that there could be an accident in which a number of coal workers died is an indication that they are still mining coal, despite the fact that they didn't want to support us with the World Bank loan primarily because they said that we were going to continue using coal. That is an indication ...
... ya gore, maaka a maoto makhutshwane. [... that lying is shortlived.]
Lie to the world, and God - and, as I said, 2010 is the year God created for South Africa - proved the day before the decision on the loan was taken that the very same people and countries against us using coal were still using it by exposing them. [Applause.]
People say we have a crisis. Yes, we have a crisis, and the chairperson has referred to the report that the Electricity Distribution Industry has produced about the challenges that we have in the distribution infrastructure. We won't be indicating today if we are hiding anything - that we have about R27 billion worth of backlogs in the distribution infrastructure only in the municipalities that we have already done the study on. If we have to do the whole country, you'd realise that we've got decaying or rotten infrastructure that needs to be totally renewed.
We also need to understand that municipalities have bigger challenges, such as whether to continue to electrify or delay electrification and address the backlogs of the past. You'd remember that many people in South Africa never had access to electricity and many of them are just experiencing electricity now. I remember in 1989, when I was flying back from Zambia after a consultation with the ANC, the pilot said to us that on our right where there was smog and smoke was Soweto and that on our left were the suburbs.
When you looked down, on the left were blue patches of swimming pools all over and on the right was a cloud of smoke and smog. These are the challenges that we have to deal with today. We have to address these particular challenges.
I have had actual experience of load shedding. In the early 1980s, having visited Zambia again, Zambia had to share electricity with Zimbabwe because their power stations had been bombed by the then defence force as Zambia was seen to be harbouring the ANC. So, when we speak about a crisis, we must bear in mind that it was only last week that President Obama said to President Zuma: You have not, as yet, experienced an electricity crisis. This is because they know what it means to have a blackout in an entire state like California for many, many days.
So, I just want to say to you today that whilst we have a crisis, we need to understand where this crisis emanates from. This government had to address the challenges faced by the people of South Africa, meeting the basic needs of our people - housing, education, health and others whilst we also had other challenges. That is the reason for stalling and delaying the power station programmes. This is not to say that we are doing away with it, but understand that the policies that government introduced of free basic electricity and universal access drove up demand. That is why today we have to address the challenge we have in relation to providing infrastructure. [Applause.]
We are committed to renewable energy. You would know that the challenge we have is not because we are not committed to renewable energy, but because the technologies we need to employ for renewable energy are very expensive and we don't have them in South Africa. We have to import them at exorbitant costs. This means that we have to ... hamba kancane ... [... take it slowly and ...] ... make sure that whilst we look at the infrastructure, we import a little bit. That is why I spoke about what Ipap2 - the Industrial Policy Action Plan - would be doing.
We are committed to making sure that the independent power producers, IPPs, participate. I want to clarify one thing: There are people who believe that we want to privatise Eskom. We are not going to privatise Eskom. We are saying that 30% of the new generation going forward must be in the hands of the private sector. If you want 50 000 megawatts, 30% of the 50 000 megawatts must come from the IPPs. That is what we are saying. We are not saying that we are going to take Eskom and privatise parts of it. It would be careless and politically irresponsible for us to do so. We know that energy is a political issue. It is also energy that is responsible for the wars raging in the world. So it is important that the control of energy sources and generation be in the hands of government. That is why I indicated that the grid or ...